Tol Dínen
by Haeronwen
Summary: 'One easily tears apart that which never was joined— / our song together.' The Fourth Age dawns, and the world is changed.


**I**

_Þæt mon ēaþe tōslīteð þætte n__ǣ__fre gesomnad wæs—  
>uncer giedd geador.<em>

-

PELARGIR  
><em>Cerveth, 37 Fo.A.<em>

Ivandur dreams of ships, passing in the night, of the sound of water, and the feel of rain. He wakes to a smothered laugh and fingertips brushing the soles of his feet; curls his toes against the stimulation and lurches upright, sheets sliding to his waist. He does not reach for the sword lying half-sheathed by his bed, for he knows that laugh, and its owner.

"Merewyn," he murmurs, and, sure enough, it is her profile silhouetted against the moonlit window. "I was sleeping."

"I'd noticed."

"Perhaps you would like to join me." The words escape his lips before he considers their implication—"that is," he clarifies swiftly, "_elsewhere_. In your own quarters. Go to bed, Merewyn."

He is glad that it is dark, that she cannot see the heat risen in his cheeks.

"I can't sleep," she says. Something playful and petulant in her voice reminds him forcefully of the girl who dragged him after her into the water at Henneth Annûn, who raced him to lay claim to the highest peaks in Emyn Arnen, whose fingers were always sticky with juice come Laer when the drupes were ripe. Clearly the instinct is deeply ingrained, because when she smiles—a flash of teeth in the dark—and says, "Come for a walk," he pulls a tunic over his shirt, boots over his feet, and follows her from the room. Doesn't bother with jerkin or armour, but takes his cloak, because he knows she won't take hers.

Ivandur might be a warrior, a man of Gondor and member of the Guard, but he is also the boy who clambered and floundered and gorged himself on fruit; he knows better than to argue with Merewyn.

"Why torture _me_ when your brother is within easy reach?" he enquires, long strides easily keeping pace with her brisk ones. "Was not that the reason you dragged me out here?"

Pelargir is a remarkable city, but he would happily have forgone the two days on horseback spent getting there.

"He'd never stand for it—so absurdly _scéadwis_."

These occasional lapses into Rohirric occur most often when she is exasperated; he has no idea what _scéadwis _means, but he has an inkling that it is inappropriate. The distaste with which she utters the word would seem to confirm his suspicions. Since it is unlikely that she acquired quite so many insults and cursesin conversation with family, he suspects her vocabulary has been cultivated consciously to give most offense to the sensibilities of young, Gondorian ladies. Merewyn was born in Gondor but not of it; he has never met a woman less suited to court politics.

Needless to say, the few words of Rohirric he has managed to acquire by proxy are wholly unsuitable for use in polite company.

"You, on the other hand, require very little persuasion."

"I could hardly let you wander off alone, in the middle of the night," he replies, ignoring the way her lips twist in amusement. "Your father would have my head."

"In the eyes of my father," she tells him, "you can do no wrong. I am impossible; it is generally agreed. You put up with me better than anyone I have ever known—for that alone, I think he would have you decorated."

"Regardless." She would have ridden to Pelargir with or without an escort, he is certain—so eager to see her brother, and the city of which he has taken charge. It is not a difficult journey. The road is well-travelled, and she is a better rider than any of the men who might have been charged with her keeping—himself included.

"Regardless," she agrees, wryly, "I can hardly be allowedto go where I like, when I like, on a whim. It would be unseemly."

"That is not what I meant, and you know it."

She raises an eyebrow in his direction, and slips out into the night.

They are quartered in the citadel that still stands at the fore of the sprawling harbour, its foundations rooted deep in the sea wall. Like Pelargir itself, a relic of a forgotten age, before the Corsair Wars saw the city razed to the ground, when the Ship-Kings reigned and Gondor was yet undiminished. He recalls the tedium of history lessons as a child. What was once the Great Hall lies in ruin, but the body endures—and might yet be rebuilt. Venturing out into the streets, they find them largely empty, uncomfortably quiet, and he misses the life and colour of Ostarnen with sudden urgency. By comparison, Pelargir is a ghost town; a pale imitation of its former splendour.

"It feels," Merewyn says, softly, "important. Doesn't it feel important?"

"I don't know," he replies, honestly.

There is a quiet longing in her voice that has nothing to do with missing home—envy, perhaps? She sees the city through different eyes. "I think it will be important," she repeats, with quiet assurance.

They have reached the market, where the stalls lie empty but the scent of seafood lingers, and beyond the crumbling walls the docks extend out into the bay. Moonlight cuts through the surface of the water.

"If you're set on sampling local delicacies," he says, turning away from the seascape to face her, "I think we might have waited until morning."

Merewyn rolls her eyes spectacularly; she has always had a knack for unattractive facial expressions. "When we climbed that great oak at the edge of Ostarnen, Ivandur, were you hoping to catch me on my way down?"

"I think I was hoping to beat you to the top."

They were seven and eight, and he'd spent the greater part of Rhîw confined in bed. Merewyn twisted her ankle on the dismount.

She smiles now, as if the point is proven. "Nothing has changed," she says.

The implication being that he enjoys these excursions—night-time or otherwise—as much as she does. She is so certain she sees straight through him; more frustrating is the possibility that she might be right.

"We've changed," Ivandur argues. "We were children."

He doesn't know why he's so reluctant to concede the point—only that she seems so often to have the advantage that he does not think he can afford to lose this one. She runs a hand lightly over his jaw, thumb brushing his chin, and her mouth twitches as if suppressing amusement; for a moment he fights to maintain his countenance, but it is over almost as quickly as it started.

"You like to think you've given up childish things," she says, with a certain satisfaction. "Yet here you stand."

"A devastating blow from one who forgets to _feed herself_."

"I don't pretend to know anything of the world, Ivandur." Abruptly, she is serious. "The chance would be a fine thing."

He looks at her: standing there in the same clothes she has worn for the last two days, hair escaping her braid, deathly pale in the moonlight. They might not be grown, but nor are they children, and he would like in that instant to prove it to her. His eyes fall to her mouth.

The truth is that she scares him like nothing else—so intense and uncompromising, he is waiting for the day that she decides her life here isn't enough. There is a part of him that is afraid she will come to harm, and a part that fears she will surpass him. He loves Gondor in a way that she does not.

He clears his throat, shakes his head. "You _are_ impossible," he tells her.

"As established."

In the end, it matters little that his sword is still lying by his bedside; were his hand already on the hilt, he would not have had chance to draw it. (_The chance would be a fine thing_.) Merewyn is smiling at him, and then she isn't; he feels a blow to his back with enough force to drive him to his knees, a numbness spreading through his limbs that he can't quite reconcile with the searing pain below his neck.

He sees it in her eyes as she leans over him, hands pressed to his chest and mouth forming urgent words that he can't quite make out. He sees the terror and the desperation and a flash of fire fierce against the night sky, and then he sees nothing.

Ivandur dreams of ships, passing in the night, of the sound of water, and the feel of rain.

EDORAS  
><em>Urui<em>, 37 Fo.A.

"Elves aren't like to go underground, I reckon."

Legolas tears his eyes from the horizon to observe his companion, who has not spoken a word in the three hours since his watch began, but evidently feels he has found a topic worth broaching. Eormenric, son of Eafa is a bear of a man without patience for camaraderie or social niceties; widely disliked, but as widely respected. His king trusts him, and that is no small endorsement. For his part, Legolas is content to withhold judgement.

"We have our moments," he replies, with a smile.

It is near dawn, but for the moment the city is still—only the snorts of horses and the echo of boot on flagstone to break the silence.

"Is it changed?"

"'It'?"

"The men," Eormenric continues, after a moment—"they say that _Glæmscrafu_ holds 'wealth and splendour beyond compare'." The citation is audible in his voice. "Doubt any have actually seen it," he adds, as if excusing their ignorance.

"It is," Legolas says, "very much as it always was." A marvel untarnished by the failures of men, elves or dwarves; untouched by the evil that brought a world to its knees. Now the Glittering Caves are alight once more with the glow of the furnace, and the songs of the dwarves who call it home. He is as humbled now by its majesty as he was when first he set foot there.

Those songs are grains of sand in an hourglass. Aglarond's is a terrible beauty—it will outlast them all. Undiminished, even to the end of the Earth.

Eormenric exhales softly. "I remember it cold," he says. "Quiet. The ground shook, but it was so quiet you could hear yourself breathe." The man chances a glance in Legolas's direction, only to look away the moment he catches his eye. "Don't remember splendour."

Boys as young as nine fought and died against the hordes of Isengard. It is difficult to reconcile this hardened warrior, this captain of the Third Éored, with any one of the small, terrified faces disappearing into the Deep on the eve of that battle—even more so for Legolas, for whom it is ever a source of wonder and sorrow that Man is altered in the blink of an eye. He thinks of Estel, Aragorn, Strider, Elessar; boy, man, ranger, king. It is Elessar of whom songs will be sung—that great King of Gondor, who marched against the Black Gate and reunited the realms of men. He mourns for Estel, for Aragorn, whose time in this world is so short. And now he mourns for the young Eormenric, whose life would never be the same.

The elves, immortal and unchanging, have ever been a touchstone for men, who burn briefly and fiercely, and then are forgotten.

"I was there, that day," Legolas tells him. "I fought on the Deeping Wall."

Eormenric nods a begrudging acknowledgment. "I remember you," he says. Legolas wishes he could reciprocate, for the sake of that little boy, now lost forever. "Don't think I could ever go back."

Legolas remains silent, and he continues. "My sister's boy," he tells him, "Egric. He'll fight in his own éored by _hærfest_."

They stand, side-by-side, and watch as the sky grows lighter. There is a streak of pink on the horizon, just visible beyond the line of trees.

"I fear what's next," Eormenric says, "for the generations who don't remember."

A streak of pink on the horizon, and a black smudge on the landscape, growing ever larger. Oncoming, Legolas realises, after a beat—approaching Edoras with remarkable speed, a cloud of dust in its wake.

"A horse and rider approach," he says, once the object takes shape, and the man beside him stiffens.

"An emissary?" Eormenric mutters, straining to see the figure he cannot yet make out.

"Perhaps."

"News from Minas Tirith?" Éomer and Aragorn were in regular correspondence; it was not an unreasonable assumption. Yet,

"If it _is_ news," Legolas replies, "then it is ill. He rides as if the enemy were close behind."

Eormenric curses softly under his breath. "If there were such trouble in Gondor wouldn't we have heard before now?"

The horse's flank is dark in the dim twilight, but it moves with a singular grace at an impossible pace—a reckless pace—and when the rider shifts—

"I do not think it is from Gondor."

"What makes you so sure?"

"That is one of the Mearas." At his words, Eormenric inhales sharply, leans over the parapet stone. "Is it not?"

"_Béma_," the man breathes. "You're right."

"What is more," Legolas says, his eyes still fixed on the approaching beast, "he carries two riders. Hooded and cloaked. One, at least, injured."

Another curse. "I'll have them open the gates."

Legolas barely registers his companion's quick footsteps fading; he is still focused on the horse, and its riders, and a sudden certainty that pain and loss, death and suffering, are hard on their heels. What they bring with them will change everything.

His feet find the steps, and he finds the courtyard, where Eormenric waits with two of the Watch, and two more stand poised to open the gates. They do so just in time, for the horse does not slow to account for creaking hinges—bursts into the courtyard, the elbows of the foremost rider barely grazing the edges of the gates, and rears up as the Rohirrim step back. The sudden halt throws the second rider—who was leaning heavily on his companion, hands twisted in the beast's mane—from his seat. He does not rise again, but lies still, arm bent beneath him at an odd angle.

Eormenric beckons his men forward to tend the fallen stranger, but keeps his eyes on the remaining rider, who seems to be making no efforts to calm his mount. The horse—a dappled, grey stallion, tall and lean, pure Mearas—is in considerable distress, tossing its head and kicking out.

"I am Eormenric, son of Eafa. What is your business here?"

As the guards raise the unconscious rider gently from the ground, Legolas steps forward in time to catch the horse's reins. To his surprise, he meets with no resistance from the rider; murmurs soothing words to the creature until it quiets and stills. (_Man le trasta, mellon nîn? Novaer._) He hears Eormenric continue—"Make yourself known; if it's assistance you want then you'll have it"—and then a strangled gasp, as they turn the stranger over and his face is made visible for the first time.

"My Lord," one of them—Bertwald?—cries, "it is the king's nephew! It is Lord Elboron!"

His face is drained of colour, his fair hair matted with blood, but it is, beyond doubt, Elboron of Ithilien. Stripped of the armour he wears like a second skin, he is closer to the boy that Legolas remembers than he has likely been in years.

"He still breathes!"

"You," Eormenric snaps, "find Master Wictred. Take Lord Elboron to the _læcehús_."

"Move him as little as possible," Legolas tells them. "I will follow."

"Bertwald, Éomer King must be informed."

There is a flurry of movement, but Legolas is still holding the reins of the horse; places one hand on the creature's flank in an attempt at reassurance, and draws it away bloody. In that moment, he knows. A cold entirely inconsistent with the warmth of the night seems to sap the strength from his limbs. It makes no sense, except that it makes every kind of sense, for where else would she be?

He looks up at the rider to glimpse familiar features beneath the hood, and unfamiliar —dull, unfocused eyes, and white, drawn lips. In abject horror he reaches for her, and as if in response she falls, the dead weight of her in his arms terrifyingly little. Beneath her cloak, the material of her tunic is warm and wet on one side, soaked through; he feels it against his upper arm as he holds her, one hand at the nape of her neck. "_Man agoreg?_" he breathes. "_Man agoreg, Calithil?_"

A new day dawns, and the world is changed.

CHAPTER NOTES:

For all dates I refer to 'The New Reckoning' used in Arnor and Gondor—roughly equivalent to the Gregorian Calendar but which uses Sindarin terms for the seasons and months of the year—since it is here that the larger part of the tale will take place. Cerveth is July; Urui, August. Similarly, Laer is summer and Rhîw is winter.

I follow Tolkien in my use of Anglo-Saxon to represent the Rohirric language. In this instance, '_scéadwis_' can be translated as 'reasonable', or 'rational'.

Since I could find no record of the name of the settlement established in Ithilien in the Fourth Age, I took the liberty of creating my own – Ostarnen combines 'ost-', meaning 'fort' or 'citadel', with the name of the hills in which it is located.

The Glittering Caves, located in the mountains behind Helm's Deep, were known as 'Aglarond' among the elves, and _Glæmscrafu _to the Rohirrim.

'_Hærfast_' is Rohirric for 'harvest', or autumn/fall. A _læcehús_ is an infirmary.

'_Man le trasta, mellon nîn? Novaer' _is Sindarin, and means 'what troubles you, my friend? Be well.' '_Man agoreg?_' translates as, 'What have you done?'


End file.
